Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump: Inside their tangled relationship

President Trump once called Rupert Murdoch “my very good friend.”

But the 94-year-old media baron, whose fortunes have risen in tandem with Trump’s political ascent, has turned into an unlikely foe.

Trump has bristled over a Wall Street Journal report that he allegedly sent a suggestive letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. Trump denied sending the message, calling it a “fake,” and last month he filed a $10-billion defamation suit against Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., Murdoch and others.

The billionaire — who sits at the top of the world’s most prominent conservative media empire — has become the focus of the president’s fury.

“I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, a nod to “Fox & Friends,” one of his favorite TV programs. The Journal, he wrote, is a “Disgusting and Filthy Rag,” and Murdoch’s “‘pile of garbage’ newspaper.”

Trump’s attorneys applied more heat last week in a startling bid to force Murdoch to promptly appear for a deposition. In a motion, Trump’s lawyers cited the mogul’s age and health complications, which they said includes a recent fainting episode, and over the last five years, a broken back, a torn Achilles tendon and atrial fibrillation, which could make Murdoch “unavailable for in-person testimony at trial.”

Through a spokesman, Murdoch declined to comment.

The tussle provides a rare glimpse into the tangled relationship of two titans whose dealings date back a half-century when the Australian-born Murdoch arrived in the U.S. and bought the New York Post, a punchy tabloid with screaming headlines. Trump forged his reputation as a New York real estate tycoon, in part, by dishing scoops to the paper’s celebrity-hungry Page Six.

And Fox News would become one of Trump’s biggest champions. The network has long heaped on positive attention that helped Trump transform himself from reality TV star to the political hero of his Make America Great Again base.

The cable network gave Trump a platform for his unfounded “birther” conspiracies about former President Obama. And Trump’s political rise helped build Fox News into a ratings and financial juggernaut. This summer, Fox News ranks as America’s No. 1 network, according to measurement firm Nielsen, attracting more viewers in prime time than broadcast leaders NBC and CBS.

What’s more, a string of Fox News personalities have joined Trump’s administration, including former weekend host, now secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Murdoch and Trump “feed off one another — they’ve had this relationship since the ’70s where they kind of benefit from one another,” said Andrew Dodd, a journalism professor at the University of Melbourne. “But they also have these turns where they’re against each other.”

Gabriel Kahn, a USC journalism professor and former Wall Street Journal reporter, said the tension is real.

“As much as Rupert has pumped up Trump World over the last 10 years, Rupert really sees himself as the kingmaker — not the lackey,” Kahn said.

Trump’s social media posts over the years reveal bouts of frustration with Murdoch and his media properties.

The two men have different political philosophies: Murdoch is known to be a small-government Reagan Republican, “not a true conservative populist” in the MAGA vein, according to one Republican political operative who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Insiders and observers point to a series of slights, including a 2015 remark Murdoch made on Twitter a month after Trump descended on the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his first presidential bid, and then ignited a firestorm with anti-immigrant comments.

“When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?” Murdoch asked a decade ago.

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch and his father, Rupert Murdoch, in 2018.

(Adrian Edwards / GC Images)

Murdoch, at turns, tried to recruit or boost rival presidential hopefuls. Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis received flattering coverage on Fox News early in President Biden’s term.

By that time, Trump was back at Mar-a-Lago after losing the 2020 election and Fox News was navigating treacherous terrain. The network was the first major outlet to call Arizona for Biden on election night, riling Trump and his supporters who viewed the move as a betrayal, one that short-circuited their claims the election had been stolen. Fox News witnessed an immediate viewer exodus.

To win back Trump supporters, the network gave a platform to Trump surrogates who suggested machines flipped votes for Biden, despite the fact that Murdoch and others knew such claims were false, court filings revealed.

Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic sued for defamation. Discovery in the Dominion lawsuit revealed that, two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Murdoch wanted to carve some distance, writing a former executive: “We want to make Trump a non person.”

In a 2023 deposition, Murdoch conceded missteps of spreading the unfounded theories. Fox that spring agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million — one of the largest payouts ever for a U.S. libel suit. The Smartmatic case is still pending.

“They promulgated the ‘Big Lie,’” Dodd said of Fox News’ post-2020 election coverage. “Now, in the twilight years of his life, Murdoch [may be] thinking: ‘Well, this man really is not worth supporting any longer.’”

Such a shift would not be out of character. Murdoch, in the past, has promoted political leaders and governments, only to pull that support.

In the 1970s, after initially backing Australia’s then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, Murdoch allegedly directed his editors to “Kill Whitlam,” in a political (not violent) sense. Twenty years later in Britain, Murdoch abandoned the Conservatives after being a close ally of former leader Margaret Thatcher. He famously threw the weight of his tabloid, the Sun, behind Labor’s Tony Blair.

After years of backing Tories, the Sun shifted back to Labor and Keir Starmer last year, saying that “it is time for a change.”

“Murdoch has a long career of breaking what he makes,” Dodd said.

His vast empire, divvied between News Corp. and Fox Corp., allows his outlets to have different leanings. The Journal has lent more skeptical coverage to Trump. It broke stories about Trump’s hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy bunny Karen McDougal. This year, its editorial board called his high tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history.”

Fox News, however, remains staunchly in the president’s camp. Murdoch is “putting one part of the organization in attack mode while keeping the other [Fox News] in reserve while it benefits from the base of the person that he’s attacking,” Dodd said.

The media baron has long relished his proximity to power. He attended Trump’s second inauguration in January and participated with business leaders in an Oval Office meeting a few weeks later.

Murdoch was reportedly among Trump’s circle of VIPs in New Jersey on July 13 for the FIFA Club World Cup soccer championship match.

Two days later, a Journal reporter emailed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, advising that the paper was preparing to publish a story about the Epstein birthday letter, according to Trump’s lawsuit. Trump’s lawyers pushed back, saying the allegations were false.

Trump called Murdoch, according to court filings. “Murdoch advised President Trump that ‘he would take care of it,’” Trump wrote in a July 17 post on Truth Social, the day the story published. “Obviously, he didn’t have the power to do so,” Trump wrote.

Trump sued the next day. A Dow Jones spokeswoman responded: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

The legal dustup comes after a string of controversial wins for the president.

Last month, Paramount Global agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a dispute over “60 Minutes” edits of a Kamala Harris interview, a lawsuit that 1st Amendment experts said had no merit. In December, Walt Disney Co. paid $16 million to end a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump over inaccurate statements by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos — an outcome derided by some 1st Amendment experts who thought Disney would eventually prevail.

“President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote. “It has truly turned out to be a ‘Disgusting and Filthy Rag.’”

Murdoch watchers don’t expect him to capitulate.

“In this bizarre world that we live in, Rupert is actually one of the few people who might be willing to stand up to Trump,” Kahn said. “Remember, Rupert loves newspapers, he loves the scoop and he loves to stir the pot.”

Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.